Training to be a plumber is no walk in the park, no matter what the economic climate is up to. However, in recent years, training to be a plumber has become even harder thanks to the lack of apprenticeships and work placements around. There are a number of reasons why these opportunities are so thin on the ground and sadly money is at the heart of all of them.

Many plumbers just do not have the money to take on an apprentice as the majority are currently self-employed and facing a somewhat uncertain future in terms of workload. Even though many county councils offer generous grants to help plumbers pay for apprentices, many experienced plumbers simply do not have the time and energy to help youngsters who are training to be a plumber. On top of all this there is the worry that younger blood in the plumbing industry will force out the more experienced members of the profession, leading to even fewer available jobs.

This is all very problematic. An apprenticeship and on the job learning are significant parts of training to be a plumber and, without this kind of experience, many students will be unable to qualify. This is one reason that Grimsby’s young William Bradley has taken matters into his own hands…

Rather than make endless, disappointing phone calls, 15 year old William has taken the initiative. After creating a special board reading:

‘PLUMBING & HEATINGAPPRENTICESHIPWANTEDI’M READY TO GO’

he has taken a prime position outside his local Plumbing Trade Supplies centre and is handing out his card to sympathetic passers-by. He has been met by support and many people have been impressed by his pro-active approach to getting into training to be a plumber. According to one local: “I was a plumber for 18 years and I can say that it is a hard trade to break into.”

Here at Access we wish William all the best. As a top training provider we know how difficult training to be a plumber can be – especially when apprenticeship opportunities are thin on the ground. If you are looking into training to be a plumber and finding it difficult to get an apprenticeship, speak to our knowledgeable team here at Access Training. A number of our courses allow you to bypass the apprenticeship requirement and take this stress out of training to be a plumber. For more information call today on 0800 345 7492.

Training to be a plumber is not plain sailing for any student but, for many women training to be a plumber, sexual harassment in the workplace makes gaining skills and experience even harder. The recent story of Sheona Keith who spent 3 years training to be a plumber only to experience sexual harassment, contempt and redundancy is a worrying example.

After training to be a plumber for 3 years, Sheona Keith found that she was the victim of sexism and even sexual harassment in her day-to-day work as a fully qualified plumber. After months of this sort of treatment Keith was made redundant. The depression and anger that this situation caused resulted in Keith committing actual bodily harm when she found herself, once again, the victim of unwanted sexual attention in a nightclub.

According to the judge: “You [Sheona Keith] worked hard but your chosen line of work took you into a completely male dominated environment and one where I am afraid you had to put up with sexist comments and harassment which there is no excuse for.”

"This forms the background of why you lost your job and in the end resulted in all this. You went to a night club even though you normally don't drink and don't go out.”

The fact that law-abiding, talented women who have gone through rigorous training to be a plumber are made to feel unsafe and driven to desperate acts due to the behaviour of clients is a sad truth for the plumbing industry, and a problem that the plumbing community need to confront.

Access Training believe that everyone has the right to a shining plumbing career after completing training to be a plumber – a career which is based purely on merit, not gender. We provide fully accredited training to be a plumber which allows students to become the very best they can be. For more information about receiving top-notch training to be a plumber in a supportive and inspiring environment, speak to our team today on 0800 345 7492.

If you are considering training to be a plumber or vocational training more generally, the news that the planned overhaul of the UK’s vocational educational system has come unstuck will pique your interest. Following the damning Wolf review of vocational courses, the minister of education, Michael Gove, promised a thorough overhaul of the system and the QCF (Qualifications and Credit Framework). The aim of this new framework was to:

Set a country-wide standard for vocational training, ensuring the high standard of education across the UK;

Establish levels and gradings across the vocational system to monitor progress and gauge achievement;

Integrate the vocational system with the current academic system, allowing vocational courses a points system which would function as a comparable equivalent.

Unfortunately, for those considering training to become plumber, or establishing themselves into any sort of trade, these changes have foundered utterly and have folded a month before their due completion.

The issue with courses for those interested in training to be a plumber is the hundreds of courses out there which all function in different ways. This makes bringing them all up to a general standard and implementing a thorough, water-tight framework exceedingly difficult. In fact, the whole doomed QCF process has been described as “expensive spaghetti”!

This failure won’t make much difference to those training to be a plumber. Changes are yet to be made and very few training providers are ready for them when they are eventually implemented. They are unlikely to affect those currently training to become a plumber.

In the future, if you are thinking about training to be a plumber, you can expect a more thoroughly regulated system of vocational training with relative values and a clear framework. The industry qualifications you’ll earn, however, will stay the same.

These changes seem to be a fair way off still but, when they are implemented, Access Training are ready to make the change, ensuring quality and consistency across the vocational training courses we offer. If you’d like to find out more about training to be a plumber with industry experts, just take a look at the flexible and varied courses available on our website, or call our team on 0800 345 7492 today.

The introduction of vocational lessons for less academic students has been hailed as a very good thing for education. Nowadays school children can be taught horticulture and can undertake training to be a plumber, and much more. Training to be a plumber at a young age is a great way to get experience is a good business and a fulfilling profession, but the recent Wolf Review which monitored vocational training to be a plumber among other courses, found real shortcomings in vocational education.

Vocational Course ProblemsThe problems that the Wolf Report identified with vocational training to be a plumber at school include a lack of real value. In many cases, vocational courses which were supposed to provide children with training to be a plumber did not prepare their students thoroughly enough for higher education or for a real job.

Training to be a plumber at school is often equivalent to several GCSE but does not provide students with the right level of skill to account for this. This means that, after undergoing training to be a plumber, school leavers often find that there is no job for them and they are woefully under-prepared for further education.Why Do These Problems Arise?The key reason that so many courses which provide training to be a plumber to school kids are so useless is that there is a severe lack of regulation. There is no single, dedicated body which controls the standard of training to be a plumber. This means that, while there are many fantastic vocational plumbing courses around, there are equally training courses which underprepare students and do not fulfil the needs of their students.

Get High-Quality Training to Be a PlumberThere are many proposed changes to school training to be a plumber. The Wolf Report suggests that many of the underperforming courses are immediately scrapped. Meanwhile, the report proposes making further education (FE) courses available to vocational secondary school students who want training to be a plumber.

If vocational plumbing courses are scrapped at secondary schools, students may have to wait until their leave school to get training to be a plumber. This may not be so terrible a thing. There are lots of brilliant plumbing training courses out there and adult training is monitored by awarding bodies such as City & Guilds so their quality and standard is assured.

If you are interested in training to be a plumber, whether you are a school leaver or not, you can enrol on our plumbing training courses which can be found UK-wide. Our courses are flexible, City & Guilds accredited and taught by experienced professionals. To learn more about training to be a plumber with Access Training, browse our site or call our team on 0800 345 7492 today.